just recently i went to the botany department and they laid out these incredible plants, hundreds ofthousands that document these species. and the beauty is they collected them for years, and now can do dna studies and do an interpretation if these species will survive and that's connected to our survival. so talking to these people that collect these all over the world, is fascinateing to me. >> you talked about wanting the smithsonian and the science to be a major player of the big issues today, such as climate change. do you worry about wading into political waters since congress is right next door? >> that's a good question, we at the smithsonian, our position is to do our best of honest brokers, we are not evangelist on one side or other. we want to present information so people can make up their own minds. climate change hasn't happened yet, and it's a prediction part. i was in a botanist area and 500 years and when it was happening, and i hit the rock with a hammer, and there is palm leaves, and it was warmer. our job is to try to provide solid information to help people under

just recently i went to our botany department in natural history. they laid out these collections of increbbedible plants they've got. hundreds of thousands of these things that document different species. now we can do d.n.a. studies on them and do much more interpretation of whether or not our species is going to survive or these species which is connected to our survival. so talking to the people who go out and collect these objects all over the world, why do they do it? where do they go and how do they do it is fascinating to me. >> you've talked a little bit about wanting the smithsonian and science of the smithsonian to become a major player on the big issues of the day like climate change. do you worry at all about wading into political waters there since congress is always right next door? >> that's a good question. we -- our position is that we will do our best to be honest brokers on these issues. we are not going to be evangelists on one side or the other. we will present information to the people. climate change is a complex issue, and i